Just A Rant, Emby Plugin Update

[House Of Cards]

Every... Single.... Time... I try to update any jail or plugin in any way, it doesn't work as expected. I have the Emby plugin installed and running fine in a 12.2-RELEASE-p13 jail on TrueNAS 13.0-RELEASE. TrueNAS tells me there is an update available, I stop the plugin and click the "update button"... A lot of things scroll by in a window NOT designed to let me read what's happening. After the window closes with no message of whether it worked or not, my plugin reports it's the latest version. Start the jail back up...

But Emby no longer starts.

Update just the plugin, same... Update plugin and select to update the jail, same...

It Just Never Works. Why include jails and plugins if there is no sanity check as to whether updates will break anything? One click, and you're a failed snapshot away from rebuilding your jail/server. There has got to be a better way to manage this.

End Rant...

 

[Kris Moore]

I may sound like a broken record, but using plugins on CORE is a path to sadness. The plugin system is more or less deprecated and as you can tell, somewhat unstable. If Apps are your thing, TrueNAS SCALE is going to be your path forward.

 

[House Of Cards]

I had no idea that plugins were considered a dying thing. I have four running flawlessly right now, I can just never get them to update. I might look at SCALE down the road, but updating all this sounds daunting. I have to say, I wish some work could go into setting standards for updating them for those of us who have them performing like they want.

It seems to me that the update process just needs to check that the required dependencies for the plugin are met and most issues go away. If my update could tell me it needs a base FreeBSD version/patch level, etc... I have no idea why this upgrade, for example, just breaks. Is it missing a dependency in the base jail, or do I need to install some additional package?

The frustration is that a lot of us went through transitioning everything from Warden to IOCAGE because we were told the transition was necessary to future-proof the jail system. Here we are a couple years later, and we need to transition again?

 

[Kris Moore]

I get it, various containers / plugin systems on FreeBSD have come and gone too many times over the years, it just doesn't have the critical mass that containers on a Linux system does. This was one of the big draws for SCALE back when we started it, Linux Apps / Containers are just light-years ahead in terms of maturity and robustness for this kind of thing. I migrated my Plex and other instances to SCALE about a year ago and even in those early stages it was far more reliable than Plugins ever were.

 

[House Of Cards]

I get it, various containers / plugin systems on FreeBSD have come and gone too many times over the years, it just doesn't have the critical mass that containers on a Linux system does. This was one of the big draws for SCALE back when we started it, Linux Apps / Containers are just light-years ahead in terms of maturity and robustness for this kind of thing. I migrated my Plex and other instances to SCALE about a year ago and even in those early stages it was far more reliable than Plugins ever were.

I would suggest to just take "the Apple approach". Meaning, maybe the plug-in system isn't as widely adopted as docker, but keep jails rock solid... Apple had this philosophy. Android may have had every bell and whistle people could dream up, but the limited feature set on the iPhone always worked as expected.

Those of us who have built a whole network on top of TrueNAS (and services running in jails) rely on it. Just keep the quirks to a minimum and focus on ease of use/updates. As long as something runs on FreeBSD, all TrueNAS needs is an interface which allows for the management of the updates.

Thanks for all the work you guys do on keeping a rock solid foundation for storage we can all use for free. Besides the upgrading of jails, I'm a big fan. Have a great day.

 

[House Of Cards]

BTW... No amount of updating through the TrueNAS interface worked, but a simple "pkg update -f emby-server" from the jail shell fixed everything. So it's just an issue with the TrueNAS update process which doesn't work. The program and underlying jail work fine.

 

[winnielinnie]

Soon into using FreeNAS, I switched from "Plugins" to vanilla jails, and simply use "pkg" to install and update the software within. My Jails are named according to their use ("plex", "qbittorrent", "multipurpose", etc). The only thing I'm missing from the "Plugin" method is there are no fancy icons.

I use "fetch" and "upgrade" to upgrade the base of the jails themselves.

 

[moww75190]

Hello,
I too have run into these issues with updating the Emby plugin. Does anyone know if there are issues running Emby in a Linux VM with TrueNAS Core?

 

[electricwildflower]

This was posted on the Emby forums after many people myself included wondered why Emby just dropped dead, many re installs and nothing, installs fine but nothing after that.

"The problem is the community package was built around the mono runtime but Emby Server 4.7 has changed to the .NET runtime, which is smaller, lighter, etc. The community package makes changes from our base package and the best way forward would be for Truenas to remove those. I've submitted this change to them already:"

The best way to solve it is manually create a jail, call it Emby and then manually install Emby using the guide below.

Emby

media server for personal streaming videos tv music photos in mobile app or browser for all devices android iOS windows phone appletv androidtv smarttv and dlna

emby.media

 

[winnielinnie]

The best way to solve it is manually create a jail, call it Emby and then manually install Emby using the guide below.

Basically the same solution for Plex, qBittorrent, and other "Plugins".

For the sake of consistent messaging, TrueNAS Core needs to drop all references to Plugins on its marketing and website, and replace it with: "Custom jails! Build your own FreeBSD jails to manually install and manage your own applications."

Heck, there's even an entire page that praises "Plugins" on TrueNAS core: https://www.truenas.com/apps/

It's really advertised as a user-friendly, polished catalog.

iXystems: This is not a technical issue. It's poor messaging and optics. The people who regular these forums are "in the know", but it's not true for laypeople and outsiders.

 

[danb35]

iXystems: This is not a technical issue. It's poor messaging and optics.

...especially when @Kris Moore says repeatedly that plugins are "for all intents and purposes deprecated" and "a pathway to pain" (the latter being a paraphrase).

 

[Chlorus]

Yep, it would be nice to have that in the official documentation that they're deprecated. (Start by removing the entire Core apps section on https://www.truenas.com/apps/) I thought it was just a case of a few plugins being in a bad state at first but in the past year every single plugin I've tried exhibits some kind of issue or complication. This thread is honestly the first that I'm hearing that iXSystems really doesn't endorse them.

 

[adrianwi]

I get it, various containers / plugin systems on FreeBSD have come and gone too many times over the years, it just doesn't have the critical mass that containers on a Linux system does. This was one of the big draws for SCALE back when we started it, Linux Apps / Containers are just light-years ahead in terms of maturity and robustness for this kind of thing. I migrated my Plex and other instances to SCALE about a year ago and even in those early stages it was far more reliable than Plugins ever were.

Why continue to promote them to new users on the website? There are regular threads from new users trying to update Plugins, and they always get told not to bother. I was one of them back in the land of FreeNAS 9.3 and stopped using them given the issues keeping even basic things like Plex and emby up to date. I developed enough knowledge from some excellent guides and support to create what I wanted in jails and VMs, which I've been able to maintain ever since. Either fix the plugins or remove them. At the very least, they should not be promoted as a long-term workable solutions and come with lots of health warnings in the support documentation that they will not successfully update

 

[tprelog]

I started playing around with plugins way back in FreeNAS 11.1, before any UI was added. I always thought of them as a convenience script - They basically became a button to run a scripted installation of a jail from the UI. Once the plugin was installed, I treated them like a normal jail and always kept the configuration on an external dataset.

The plugin system really does need work. I think one glaring omission was never including a way to mount an external dataset during the install. If we could have just had that...

I certainly don't disagree with anything that's been said in this thread so far. Like many others, I've now moved on. It's hard finding motivation to try improving plugins when everyone says "don't use plugins". It's even harder when, as a plugin creator, you have to agree.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Jails have always worked reliably and continue to do so. But these are only for those who install their own solutions in standard empty jails. It's the plugin system that is a mess - not for the underlying core technology (jails), but because there is not enough manpower for continuous updates and maintenance. They should really withdraw them and if possible expand the documentation on jails for people who are interested in using them.

 

[winnielinnie]

They should really withdraw them and if possible expand the documentation on jails for people who are interested in using them.

This is my main issue. We can argue all day back and forth about Jails vs SCALE Apps, or Jails vs Plugins, or if it's feasible for iXsystems to maintain this-or-that. But for the sake of consistency and protecting a brand's image (TrueNAS), the messaging, marketing, and websites need to reflect this as soon as possible. As mentioned before, this especially leaves a bitter taste for new users that jump over to TrueNAS and properly use the GUI to get started with using Plugins. (Only to fail miserably.)

Just look at the screenshots above, from three different places on the official TrueNAS website. If I didn't know any better, I'd say "Plugins" on TrueNAS Core work just as well as apps on an iPhone.

To put it another way: What does iXsystems expect new users of TrueNAS Core to do?

"Hopefully they'll be enticed to download and install TrueNAS Core. And, um, hopefully they won't click on the big shiny button labeled 'Plugins'. And hopefully, uh, they won't pay much attention to our official website and marketing about how awesome Plugins are. And, well, um, if they do try to use Plugins, which we expect any new user to try, hopefully they'll read these forums and discover how useless Plugins are and that we essentially deprecated them. Hopefully this won't diminish their confidence in us moving forwards..."

This hurts the brand. Pardon for sounding like a broken record myself.

 

[Redcoat]

When I climbed on the FreeNAS train back in 2014 I followed then-moderator Cyberjock's advice not to use Plugins - his clearly stated concerns were very similar to those of today. A search for "plugins" and "Cyberjock" produces some interesting reading.

 

[gwaitsi]

so, both zone minder and emby died for me after 13. i tried to reinstall emby, but can't get it to work now.
Are we saying that Scale will work better for this, but officially they still say it is for developers

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

The problem are the plugins in core. If you create a standard jail, make sure basic networking, DNS, SSH etc. works, then install the software you intend to use either manually or with e.g. Ansible ... everything works really well including updates/upgrades.

 

[House Of Cards]

so, both zone minder and emby died for me after 13. i tried to reinstall emby, but can't get it to work now.
Are we saying that Scale will work better for this, but officially they still say it is for developers

My post above worked for me...

"BTW... No amount of updating through the TrueNAS interface worked, but a simple "pkg update -f emby-server" from the jail shell fixed everything. So it's just an issue with the TrueNAS update process which doesn't work. The program and underlying jail work fine."

So try that command for Emby and ZoneMinder as well. "pkg update -f zoneminder" from the shell of the jail itself. Shutdown Emby and ZoneMinder first before running the command and reboot. Worked for me. Then just do that to update going forward and avoid updating through the interface.

Of course, snapshot the jail first so you can roll back if all goes horribly wrong.